Japanese Episode 15

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Japanese Episode 15

Japanese Episode 15: "SANTO ANNU-Gou no Tatakai!"

("The Battle of the St. Anne")

Satoshi-tachi receive free tickets from the Rocket-Dan (disguised as teenage girls) for a ride on the grand luxury ship, the St. Anne. On board, Satoshi meets a Gentleman and the two decide to trade their pokemon--Satoshi will give the Gentleman his Butterfrii in exchange for the man's Ratta. Meanwhile, Kojirou is tricked into buying a Koiking for a lot of money, an act that angers his teammates. The Rocket-Dan attack the passengers, and all of the trainers unite to defeat the evil henchmen. Satoshi calls out for Butterfrii, but his new Ratta comes out, and Satoshi realizes that he misses the pokemon he traded away. The Rocket-Dan are defeated, but the explosion also creates a hole in the hull of the ship. Water floods into the St. Anne as everyone rushes to escape, but Satoshi stays behind to trade and get his Butterfrii back. The ship suddenly jars, and Satoshi-tachi run after his escaping Monster Ball, which is rolling away. Meanwhile, Musashi-tachi chase the Monster Ball with Kojirou's Koiking, hoping they can catch it and get their money back. The ship shakes again, tossing everyone around and knocking them all unconscious. The captain and all of the trainers escape, unaware that Satoshi, Kasumi, Takeshi, Pikachu, Musashi, Kojirou, and Nyasu are still in the ship, unconscious. Tsuzuku!

Thoughts
You may wonder why I have two dates up there for the American Air Date. It's because this episode was the first one aired in America. You see, 4Kids or Nintendo or someone decided that the first episode wasn't really that great an episode to hook fans to the series, so they picked a more action-packed episode. I sorta kinda agree with them, because the series does take a few episodes before it really gets interesting. Plus, this episode ends with a cliffhanger, ensuring that fans would come back to watch it the next day to see what happened.

So they made a slightly different version of this episode for that first day. All they did was, at the beginning, have the narrator say something like "This is a special sneak peak of Pokemon." Then at the end, they had him say "Will our heroes escape? You'll have to wait a little while to find out, but tomorrow we'll see how Ash's pokemon journey began" or something like that. That "sneak preview" version only aired once, and now whenever this episode's aired, it's the regular version. I think 4Kids made a wise decision, and I think it's better than simply skipping ahead to get to the action *coughCardcaptorscough* *coughYu-Gi-Ohcough*

Anyway, this episode starts a nice three-parter that I really enjoyed. I wish more episodes were connected like 15, 16, and 17 are, but oh well. This is an episode I wished occurred in the game--you would ride the ship, get attacked by the Rocket-Dan instead of just randomly fighting trainers while the ship's docked, the ship would sink, you'd ward off a bunch of Gyarados, and you'd get stuck on an island with giant pokemon. Wouldn't that be fun?! This also happens to be the only episode in which the "other" members of the Rocket-Dan, the lowly henchmen, appear. Other than the first movie, I can't think of another episode in which they appear. Though this episode is essentially filler, it's really *good* filler, which is something I can't say often about this series...

Music Edits
This episode has a lot of music and little jingles that are made for this episode of the dub and this episode of the dub only. When Ash, Misty, and Brock sulk because they realize that they could never afford a trip on the luxury liner, the music playing as they trudge away is heard only in that scene. This also occurs when Jessie's telling Ash and the gang why they're giving them free tickets--we never hear that music again. I don't know why so much music was made for this episode only--probably because 4Kids was trying to make a "good" first impression, so they made the music in this episode more varied than your average episode of Pokemon. I just thought that was kind of weird, that's all.

Dialogue Edit
This one's just dumb:

Narrator: "Has Ash's ship finally come in? Or will our hero be crusin' for a bruisin'?"

No one says "crusin' for a bruisin'" anymore, even in 1998. In fact, the only time I ever hear this expression used is in bad anime dubs. And according to 4Kids, no one says "radical" anymore. But it's OK to use "crusin' for a bruisin'." Riiiiiiiiiiight...

Side Note
When James is a girl, he constantly says "Cool~!" This is actually very close to what he says in Japanese--Kojirou says "Chou~!" (ultra-, super-, cool, etc.). To tell the truth, I kind of like James' version better...it just sounds funnier. Sure, "chou!" sounds funny, but it doesn't have that ridiculous super-girly voice that Eric Stuart's James has.

Oh yeah, and when James does that little giggle (as Jessie is saying "radical" a few times to make Ash's next line make sense), Kojirou doesn't giggle--he just says "chou~!" again. I guess 4Kids thought it looked more like he was giggling than saying "Cool~!" again, so I guess I can see where they're coming from. No big loss.

And when Jessie is saying "To-ta-lly-Free!," Musashi says "PU-RE-SEN-TO" ("present," as in the fact that the tickets are a "present" to Satoshi-tachi).

Side Note
This episode marks the first appearance of Sakaki. I like what the animators were trying to do--make a mysterious figure the head of this super crime organization. He kind of has that Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget feel (he even has the cat), but unfortunately this doesn't last long. He only appears in a few more episodes, and toward the end his mystery and menace is all but gone. The animators could have done soooooooooo much more with his character, and really could have lengthened the series without the endless filler episodes. I think it would have been interesting for Sakaki to face the trainers who can beat even his most elite members (Yamato and Kosaburou, but I'm getting way ahead of myself), but such things aren't going to happen.

Paint Edit
Well, this isn't really a sign edit. I just thought I'd mention that they left the Japanese sign in at the entrance to the main hall place where everyone's gathered. Gotta take what I can get!

Cut-6 sec.
This one totally baffled me. I've seen this episode a lot of times, more than most episodes, and I really thought they hadn't cut these parts out. I'm talking about the shots of the inside of the ship, the establishing shots of all the pokemon trainers and the various convention going-ons. What was cut out was a still shot of a man who looks a lot like the Koiking seller later in the episode, trying to sell merchandise, and then a shot of various trainers at a dealer's table, where they can buy various pokemon merchandise. Now in all the other viewings of this episode, I thought that these were left in, but when I viewed this episode for the comparison, it was missing.

Maybe Kids' WB! went in and edited it after it was aired--it wouldn't be the first time. I taped this episode for comparison purposes back in April or May of 2001, so maybe they did go in and alter something. Or maybe it was just for that one airing that I taped. I'll be on the lookout for this episode the next time it comes on to see if this is a permanent change or not, and if it is it really does confuse me. Why would they cut these shots? Is the salesperson too Japanese for their tastes!? Or maybe they couldn't display the various merchandise because they can't advertise existing merchandise on-air? There's this episode of the Powerpuff Girls, "Collect Her," in which various pieces of merchandise had to be redrawn over and over so that no actual products were advertised on the show. So maybe that's what happened--maybe they didn't want to advertise a Charmander shirt or something. I'm just as confused as you are.

Update--it seems that the above change is indeed permanent. Thanks to Kenneth-san for verifying (I missed it when the episode was re-aired recently, but Kenneth-san caught it).

Paint Edit
The sign over the Gentleman in the Japanese version has the kanji for shouri (win) blinking red after his Ratta defeats the other trainer's Starmii. The English version painted over that sign with the word WIN, and it still flashes with the exact same tempo as the Japanese version! You wouldn't know it, though--it looks as though it was there in the first place. Definitely some of 4Kids' most impressive feats with digital paint. I would think it would have been easier just to cut the half-second it takes to pan up to reveal the sign, but I guess 4Kids had some extra money or something to toss around.

Side Note
Does anyone else wonder why the Gentleman and Satoshi have to trade using that trading machine? I mean really, is it necessary to spend 30 seconds having the Monster Balls go through the machine while the ship's sinking when they could just hand each other their Monster Balls in less than two seconds?! I guess it might be some ownership thing (maybe it's not really "yours" unless you trade it using the machine), but I still think it's a pretty stupid idea. Granted, it's very faithful to the way it's done in the game, but it makes more sense in a video game than it does in the anime.

Side Note/2 sec. Cut?
This cut falls into the same category as the previous cut--but this time, I thought that it had been cut when it wasn't. I'm talking about the dialogue between Jessie and James. When James tells Jessie that he used the advance on her paycheck to pay for his Magikarp, we see Jessie's eyes narrow in that classic anime glare, and then a bunch of cartoonish stars followed by blood and one of Kojirou's teeth flying against a black background. Now I don't remember seeing this scene in the previous airings, but it made it in the version I taped. I could see why it would be cut--all that blood, even if it is cartoonish blood, usually isn't allowed in kids' cartoons. But it was there, so again, the next time this episode comes on, I'll be looking out for it.

Update-Again, thanks to Kenneth-san, it's been verified that this change is permanent. I'm still confused...

Side Note
You can tell I really like this episode because I'm talking about it so much. I just wanted to pop in and say that I like the captain of the St. Anne. I think he's one of the funniest characters in all of Pocket Monsters, and I hope that he'll appear again (maybe at the end of the Jouto League episodes when Satoshi gets on the big boat back to Kanto?). I don't even know why I like him...maybe because he's so dumb? Because he looks out for himself much like Homer Simpson? I don't know, but I just wanted to say that.

Music Edit
The music at the end of the episode was replaced in the dub. The music in the Japanese version was more menacing and had that horror movie feel, but the American version, while still a little eerie, has a decidedly happier tone to it.

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